Most states were doing pretty well before the 2008 recession hit, but that ended in 2009. Most states had to make extremely difficult cuts or raise taxes, which was politically unacceptable. Of course invested pension systems received a lot of attention as their value dropped and long term sufficiency deteriorated, which was fodder for many changes in pensions, albeit not how they were invested. The good news is a lot of them came back in the ensuing 5 years, but 2015 may be different. A number of states have reported low earnings in 2015 and whether this may be the start of another recession. The U.S. economy has averaged a recession every six years since WWII and it has been almost seven years since the last contraction. With China devaluing their currency, this may upset the economic engine. At present there are analysts on Wall Street who suggest that some stocks may be overvalued, just like in 1999. If so, that does not bode well states like Illinois, Kansas, New Jersey, Louisiana, Alaska and Pennsylvania that are dealing with significant imbalances between their expenses and incomes. Alaska has most of its revenue tied to oil, so when oil prices go down (good for most of us), it is a huge problem for Alaska that gives $2200 to every citizen in the state. An economic downturn portends poorly for the no tax, pro-business experiment in Kansas that has been unsuccessful in attracting the large influx of new businesses, or even expansion of current ones. California and next door Missouri, often chided by Kansas lawmakers as how not to do business, outperform Kansas.

Ultimately the issue that lawmakers must face at the state and as a result the local level is that tax rates may not be high enough to generate the funds needed to operate government and protect the states against economic down turns. There is a “sweet spot” where funds are enough, to deal with short and long term needs, but starving government come back to haunt these same policy makers when the economy dips. It would be a difficult day for a state to declare bankruptcy because lawmakers refuse to raise taxes and fees.

“If the assumption of all economists, government officials and investors is that the population must increase exponentially, what does that suggest for our future?” was a question asked a few days back. Did you ponder this at all? I suggest we should and here is why. An exponential growth rate assumes a certain percent increase every year. That means the increase in population is greater the farther out you go. That doesn’t really make sense except perhaps at one point in Las Vegas (but not anymore). The economy cannot really expand at a rate greater than the expansion of the population because there is no one to buy the goods or increase the demand, which is why increasing the US population is going to be viewed favorably by all politicians regardless what they say today. House values do not increase faster than population increase unless they are in a bubble, nor does the stock market really (inflation adjusted). Your water sales will not increase faster than your system’s population increase for any extended period of time either, so an assumption of ever increasing water sales is likely to be an overestimation sooner as opposed to later. And then what – you have to raise rates, and keep raising rates to keep up because your demands are too low?

And what if your growth stagnates, or goes backwards as many did in 2009/2010? That was a severe problem for most entities, causing layoffs and higher prices, pay cuts and deferral of needed improvements, mostly because no one had reserves because people thought the good times would roll on forever. Layoffs, price hikes, pay cuts and deferral of needed improvements do help society (of course if you had lots of reserves, you weathered the recession without a problem, but too many did not). Keep in mind the repair, replacement, and maintenance needs, along with ongoing deterioration, do not diminish with time or lack of new customers. We have relied on new people to add money to solve old as well as new problems for many years. What is the contingency if growth stops?

So a growth scenario makes us feel better and more confident when we borrow funds. But if growth does not stop, where is the water to come from? What are the resources that will be used faster? Where does the power come from to treat the water or cool the houses? And the cooling water to cool those power plants? Even renewable resources are limited – most metals and oil have likely passed their peaks as far as production and water does not always fall consistently. We have overstressed aquifers and over allocated surface waters, especially in the west. So while growth makes us feel good financially, we need answers to the growth scenario despite the fact that we may have more funding. Many resources are not limitless, but an exponential growth pattern ignores this. Locally growth maybe less of an issue, but society wise? Maybe a societal problem, or maybe we get into extreme completion with each other. Some how that doesn’t look like a solution either

Once upon a time, people worked until they died. But the longer people lived, the more infirmities impacted older people, and the concept of stopping work came into play. So these folks labored all their lives, put some money away in a safe place, like a bank, where someone else would watch over an manage their money until they needed it. Then one day, they found out that the banks have gambled and lost on real estate, and their money was gone. There was no government to bail anyone out. So the people had to try to go back to work, became beggars and destitute or died. The government thought this was unfair to those older folks who had worked so hard, but through absolutely no fault of their own, had lost everything. So the government decided that it would “tax” people a portion of their income, and put it into a retirement system. People could retire at 65, and of course they were only expected to live another r3 or 4 years. There were 16 people laying in for every person taking out. And the government told the banks that they could not gamble with people’s hard earned savings, passed legislation and created an insurance pool to backstop losses by criminal or unethical activity. All was good and the people were happy.

As time went on some things changed. For one, people lived more than 3 or 4 years. The population retirees increased, and the ratio dropped to 1:10 and then to 1:6 ration of retirees:workers, but the “tax” did not go up, but investments were made that increased the pool. It was called good management. The government also encouraged people to save money by deferring taxes, which they did, and the banks used it to make money. All good as long as the investors gambled well. They gambled so well, they were able to talk the government into undoing the anti-gambling rules from the past, so their pool to invest was twice as much. And the markets grew and the portfolios grew and the people were happy.

And then it came to pass that the banks again gambled on real estates, and created complicated investment tools to hide the risk, but the risk was exposed and half the money was gone overnight. And the retired were wondering about jobs again. But there were no jobs. And the employed now had fewer jobs. So less people paid into the system. And the people were sad. And mad because they thought they were being protected from the gambling of the past. They did not understand.

And the government could supply no answers because they had changed the rules and they knew the people would be unhappy, so the government felt there was no choice, so they borrowed money, and bailed out the banks. And some people were happy. And some people were concerned about all that debt. And some people wondered why it was that history could repeat itself and put society at risk. And some people asked why people who did bad things were not punished.

And none of these questions has been answered. Good thing that these fairy tales don’t depict anything real right?

Since 2010, the Federal Reserve Bank indicates that the wealthiest 10 percent of American have seen their income rise by 2%. The Bottom 20% have seen their income DECLINE by 4 percent and the average for all families DECLINED 5%. That tells me that the majority in the middle income brackets, decreased at a rate greater than the bottom 20%. In other words more of us are moving down in economic standing, not up. To make matters worse, the Federal Reserve Bank indicates that the top 3% actually had their incomes increase by 27.7% since 2010, meaning that the upper middle class people are falling back with the rest of us. Quite the opposite of what our parents had hope for us.

Wages have not rebounded as many people had to take pay cuts or find new a career at lesser pay, which places all kinds of issues at risk – retirement age, retirement goals, college for the kids, investments, home ownership, etc. All play a role in the economy of the country. People spend less on eating out, new clothes and other things – generally more frugal, which means less demand for goods and services, and therefore less employment. A vicious cycle that doesn’t help the economy. We have already started to see real estate cool off as wages have not rebounded and people figure it is time to defer or get out. Places like Miami and Las Vegas may remain warmer than say Cleveland or Detroit, but the Miami market has cooled in the past year.

Real losses in purchasing power goes back to the 1980s form the lower half of earners in the US. And we argue about the minimum wage – which is the very bottom of the pile. The failed concept of the Great Society was to try to get enough money in everyone’s pocket that the total purchasing power of the population would increase. Did not work out that way, but the concept of increasing purchasing power of all has appeal. Inflation goes up. Purchasing power goes down. The economy will stagnate if wages for the bottom 90% do not increase. That makes official less likely to raise water and sewer rates to pay for those needed infrastructure upgrades. Which will put more assets at risk of failure and stress operations budgets further.

Earlier this year the Journal for AWWA had several articles about water use and infrastructure needs. One of the major concerns that has arisen in older communities, especially in the Rust Belt and the West is that demands per person have decreased. There are a number of reasons for this –the 1992 Energy Policy Act changes to plumbing codes that implemented low flush fixtures, the realization in the west that water supplies are finite and conservation is cheaper than new supplies, a decline in population, deindustrialization, and climate induced needs. But all add up to the result that total water use has not really changed over the past 30 years and in many locales, water sales may have decreased. Water utilities rely on water sales for revenues so any decrease in sales must be met with an increase in cost. Price elasticity suggests the increase will be met with another decrease in sales, etc. It is a difficult circle to deal with. So less water, whether through deliberate water conservation or other means, creates a water revenue dilemma for utilities. A concern about conserving to much and eliminating slack in the system also results.

Less water means less money for infrastructure. Communities do not see a need for new infrastructure because there are fewer new people to serve. Replacing old infrastructure has always been a more difficult sell because “I already have service, why should I be paying for more service” is a common cry, unless you are in my neighborhood where the water pipes keep breaking and we are begging the City to install new lines (they are on my street J) Educating customers about the water (and sewer) system are needed to help resident understand the impacts, and risk they face as infrastructure ages. They also want to understand that the solutions are “permanent” meaning that in 5 or 10 years we won’t be back to do more work. Elected officials and projected elected officials (the tough one) should be engaged in this discussion because they should all be on the same page in selling the ideas to the public. And the needs are big. We are looking at $1 trillion just for water line replacement by 2050 and that is probably a low number(2010 dollars). The biggest needs are in the south where infrastructure will start hitting its expected life. The south want west will also be looking for about $700 billion in growth needs as well. All this will cause a need for higher rates, especially with ¼ less low interest SRF funds avaialalbe this year from Congress.

In my last blog I outlined the 10 states with the greatest losses since 2006. Florida was not among them, yet given our legislature’s on-going discussion and hand-wringing with the state run Citizen’s insurance, you would think we have a major ongoing crisis with insurance here. Maybe we do, but I will provide some facts. Citizens,averaged between 1 and 1.5 million policies over the last 8 years. according the the South Florida SunSentinel, the average person pays $2500 per year for windstorm coverage. Somehow I think I want that bill because my insurance is about $6000 through my private insurer and when I had Citizens it was $5700/yr. But I digress.

Let’s assume there is 1.2 million policies over that time paying the #2500/yr. That totals.$3 billion a year in premiums. That means Citizens should have reserves of $24 billion because they have not paid-out since 2006. They have $11 billion according to the SunSentinel sources. So wher eis the rest of the money? We can assume there are operating expenses. They pay their executives very well for a government organization. I am sure they pay the agents as well. I asked a couple friends in the industry and they indicate that for private companies, about half your premium goes the the agent who writes the policy. That’s only Citizens.

Let’s assume there are conservatively another 8 million policies in Florida and since many of those are inland, let’s day they average $1500/yr. If you have it for less, check out your policy!. That means there is another $12 billion collected each year for a total of $15 billion per year.

Now let’s look at storms. According to Malmstadt, et al 2010, the ten largest storms 1900–2007, corrected for 2005 dollars are as follows:.

Rank Storm Year Loss($bn)

1 Great Miami 1926 129.0

2 Andrew 1992 52.3

3 Storm 1944 35.6

4 Lake Okeechobee 1928 31.8

5 Donna 1960 28.9

6 Wilma 2005 20.6

7 Charlie 2004 16.3

8 Ivan 2004 15.5

9 Storm # 2 1949 13.5

10 Storm # 4 1947 11.6

So for all bu the top 9 storms in a 107 year history,the annual receipts exceed the losses for a storm. The total over the period is $450 billion (adjusted to 2005 dollars) That means an average of $4 billion per year. So what is the issue? Sure a big storm could wipe out the trust fund, but that is what Lloyd;’son London, re-insurers and the ability to borrow funds is all about.

I suggest that the fuzz is really about is this. Most people do not understand the concept of an insurance pool. That includes many public officials. The idea of insurance is to pool resources is to collect huge sums of money so that if something bad occurs, there is the ability to compensate people for their losses. Insurance is a good thing but individually we hope it is never us that needs to be compensated because that means something bad happened. But we expect our premiums to pay into that pool, build large pools of money, and have money when you need it. The more people that pay in, the more the risk is split and lower the likelihood that any individual suffers a loss. Hence the lower risk should lower premiums. And people who live in high risk area should pay more than those who don’t. Flood plains, dry forests, coastal areas, high wind areas, tornado alley, etc are all high risk. Florida is one, but clearly there are many others,

So Citizens has a pile of money. Most private insurance companies should also, although their money is invested and they expect most of that will not be paid out. I suspect the concern is a fear that the pile of cash will create a public furor, but that shows a lack of communication and education. Cash is good. Lots of it is better. It’s like running surpluses in government or in your personal savings account. The idea is to have money when you need it. Running at a point where you never have surpluses guarantees you will have deficits that require cuts in services,and possibly losses of jobs when the economy tanks again. For insurance, those losses occur when big event hit. Fortunately those are infrequent, but they have and will happen. We need the cash pools on hand to protect our citizens just in case. In the meantime we need some leadership and education of the public.